Are You A Good Interviewer?

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string(3492) "Technology is having a profound effect on most, if not all industries, and this does not look like changing anytime soon. Working in recruitment for over 15 years, I have heard “Recruitment Agencies will be dead in 5 years” on many occasions.
Some of my more esteemed peers have written numerous articles on why this is not true (at least for the moment) & point out the need for human interaction in seducing the best candidates to your organisation. This depends on branding and what your company can offer that differentiates them from their competitors. It’s clear to me that companies are increasingly utilising many different solutions to source employees (to validate their academics and their references, see my LinkedIn post on references https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/employment-references-still-valued-alan-claire/ ).

But, something is lacking...

This is all well and good, however there is still a massive skill gap in the ability of organisations to effectively interview applicants. Interviewing skills are in steep decline and it is unfortunately a dying art. HR departments do the best they can by providing competency-based interview questions or behavioural questions (whichever nomenclature you prefer). Some provide score sheets to assist the hiring manager grade applicants, others try to facilitate the processes by being involved in every interview. However, when you reach critical mass it is impossible to be involved in every process. This is often where the hiring managers come unstuck.
Don’t get me wrong - I work with some hiring managers that are very capable with interviews, but they are the minority. To be fair, many have never had any training and are simply expected to perform interviews when they are promoted to team leader or supervisor etc. Companies spend plenty of time and resources (if they don’t, they should) training new leaders in leadership, communication, and probably some hard skill uplifting, but they often don’t assist with how to validate an applicant in an interview process.

Can you answer these questions:

What are the physical “tells” that give away a false statement or an embellishment?

What grammar should you listen out for to determine if someone is genuine?

How many core questions should you ensure that you ask every applicant to have comparable data?

What did you learn and change from your last hiring process, either due to its success or its failure?

How do you know that the questions you ask are the right ones to uncover the right person?

The list goes on. Essentially human bias, both subconscious and conscious, are still major problems in recruitment.
As unemployment creeps down to 5.5% again and the market for talent heats up, you need to ensure that you are utilising every tool available to ensure you are getting the best person possible. A hiring mistake not only has a detrimental short-term effect, but also think about where the market will be in 3 or 6 months - it will most likely be more difficult to find and attract the best talent then.
Using a serious recruiter is a great asset to your business. If you’re skeptical, ask your recruiter what their answers are to some of those 5 questions above to see if they are a good interviewer or just a good sales person."
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Technology is having a profound effect on most, if not all industries, and this does not look like changing anytime soon. Working in recruitment for over 15 years, I have heard “Recruitment Agencies will be dead in 5 years” on many occasions.

Some of my more esteemed peers have written numerous articles on why this is not true (at least for the moment) & point out the need for human interaction in seducing the best candidates to your organisation. This depends on branding and what your company can offer that differentiates them from their competitors. It’s clear to me that companies are increasingly utilising many different solutions to source employees (to validate their academics and their references, see my LinkedIn post on references https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/employment-references-still-valued-alan-claire/ ).

But, something is lacking…

This is all well and good, however there is still a massive skill gap in the ability of organisations to effectively interview applicants. Interviewing skills are in steep decline and it is unfortunately a dying art. HR departments do the best they can by providing competency-based interview questions or behavioural questions (whichever nomenclature you prefer). Some provide score sheets to assist the hiring manager grade applicants, others try to facilitate the processes by being involved in every interview. However, when you reach critical mass it is impossible to be involved in every process. This is often where the hiring managers come unstuck.

Don’t get me wrong – I work with some hiring managers that are very capable with interviews, but they are the minority. To be fair, many have never had any training and are simply expected to perform interviews when they are promoted to team leader or supervisor etc. Companies spend plenty of time and resources (if they don’t, they should) training new leaders in leadership, communication, and probably some hard skill uplifting, but they often don’t assist with how to validate an applicant in an interview process.

Can you answer these questions:

What are the physical “tells” that give away a false statement or an embellishment?

What grammar should you listen out for to determine if someone is genuine?

How many core questions should you ensure that you ask every applicant to have comparable data?

What did you learn and change from your last hiring process, either due to its success or its failure?

How do you know that the questions you ask are the right ones to uncover the right person?

The list goes on. Essentially human bias, both subconscious and conscious, are still major problems in recruitment.

As unemployment creeps down to 5.5% again and the market for talent heats up, you need to ensure that you are utilising every tool available to ensure you are getting the best person possible. A hiring mistake not only has a detrimental short-term effect, but also think about where the market will be in 3 or 6 months – it will most likely be more difficult to find and attract the best talent then.

Using a serious recruiter is a great asset to your business. If you’re skeptical, ask your recruiter what their answers are to some of those 5 questions above to see if they are a good interviewer or just a good sales person.